A Healthier Operating Line, A Bigger Interest Bill
Over these 12 quarters: share price Rp1,790 to Rp1,550 (-13%); operating income 115 to 164 Rp billion; operating income margin 9.6% to 10.2%. One graph in actual numbers: bars are the quarter's operating income, over them the share price at quarter-end (left axis) and the operating income margin (right axis); each line is fitted to its own range, so read the timing, not the heights. Prices are adjusted for splits.
Net income attributable to owners grew just 1.30% YoY to Rp149.07 billion, even though revenue grew 10.32% and operating income grew 8.27%, because finance charges - the interest bill on this year's borrowing - rose 40.66% standalone-quarter YoY, and the effective tax rate climbed from ~21.0% to ~22.9%. Q3 2026 standalone net revenue reached Rp1,599.13 billion, up from Rp1,449.60 billion a year ago (both derived by subtracting the six-month cumulative from each year's nine-month cumulative filing - see Key Financial Metrics) - continuing the double-digit topline growth seen in all three quarters of 2026 reported so far.
The revenue and operating-income story this quarter is actually the healthiest of 2026 so far: operating margin gave back only 0.19 percentage points YoY (10.24% from 10.43%), a far smaller slip than Q1's 2.45-point compression or Q2's 3.10-point compression. What explains the gap between that and the 1.30% net-income number is everything below the operating line - rising finance charges, a heavier tax bite - not the core taxi-and-rental business itself. Debt-to-equity, meanwhile, fell back below where it sat before Q2 2026's dividend-driven spike to a record 0.62x, to the company's own disclosed ~0.52x, even as this quarter ran the heaviest capex bill of the year (see Balance Sheet).
Operating Income Had Its Smallest Margin Give-Back of the Year
Operating income rose 8.27% YoY to Rp163.69 billion, tracking revenue growth far more closely than either of this year's earlier quarters. Operating margin fell to 10.24% from 10.43% a year ago - a 0.19-point slip, versus Q1 2026's 2.45-point compression and Q2 2026's 3.10-point compression. Whatever drove direct costs and operating expenses to outrun revenue earlier in the year eased meaningfully this quarter.
Finance Charges Grew Nearly Five Times Faster Than Operating Income
Standalone finance charges rose 40.66% YoY this quarter (to Rp39.64 billion from Rp28.18 billion), nearly five times faster than operating income's 8.27% growth, and the effective tax rate climbed alongside it. Nine-month finance charges are up 41.39% YoY (Rp104.26 billion from Rp73.74 billion, per the filing's own profit-or-loss statement), consistent with the standalone-quarter move rather than a one-off. The effective tax rate on standalone quarterly profit rose to approximately 22.9% from approximately 21.0% a year ago. Together, these two items below the operating line - not a weaker core business - are why net income grew only 1.30% while operating income grew 8.27%.
Debt-to-Equity Fell Back Below the Dividend Spike, Even on the Year's Heaviest Capex Bill
Debt-to-equity fell to the company's own disclosed ~0.52x from Q2 2026's record ~0.62x - back around where it sat in Q1 2026, before the dividend spike - even though this quarter's capex of Rp668.10 billion was the heaviest of any 2026 quarter. Total bank loans fell to Rp2,059.88 billion from Rp2,263.80 billion at FY2025-end, and total cash fell by more than half sequentially (from Q2 2026's Rp1,358.09 billion to Rp641.95 billion) to fund both the capex and the loan paydown at once - a faster reversal than Q1 2026's modest 2.27% sequential decline in bank loans. This is the quarter's rising borrowing cost showing up (see above), even as the balance sheet itself delevered.
The Prescription
Blue Bird should keep demonstrating the balance-sheet discipline this quarter showed - reversing a record dividend-driven leverage spike back below its starting point in a single quarter, while simultaneously running the year's heaviest capex bill, is exactly the kind of quick deleveraging that should reassure a reader who saw debt-to-equity hit 0.62x three months ago. But it should stop leaving this year's rising finance-cost run-rate unexplained: finance charges are up 41.39% over nine months and 40.66% this quarter alone, and nothing in the filing says how much of that is temporary - debt taken on to fund the AGM dividend and now being repaid - versus a permanent step-up from financing a larger, more indebted fleet. A reader has no way to tell from this filing alone whether Q4 2026's interest bill reverts toward last year's level or stays elevated.
Key Financial Metrics
Rp trillion; margin is operating income as a percent of net revenue, per quarter.
Q3 2026 vs. Q3 2025, both standalone quarters derived by subtracting the six-month cumulative from each year's nine-month cumulative filing
FX: IDR 17,998 = USD 1 (Bank Indonesia middle rate as disclosed in this filing for the period ended September 30, 2026, versus Rp16,782 disclosed for December 31, 2025) - a filing-sourced rate this quarter, unlike Q2 2026's approximate conversion, which this filing's own currency-risk note didn't disclose a middle-rate figure for.
| Metric | Q3 2026 (IDR) | Q3 2026 (USD) | Q3 2025 (IDR) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net Revenue | Rp1,599.13B | ~$88.9M | Rp1,449.60B | +10.32% |
| Adjusted EBITDA» | Rp394.21B | ~$21.9M | Rp319.43B | +23.41% |
| Operating Income» | Rp163.69B | ~$9.1M | Rp151.18B | +8.27% |
| Net Income» (attributable to owners) | Rp149.07B | ~$8.3M | Rp147.15B | +1.30% |
| Free Cash Flow» (Op. CF minus capex) | -Rp276.14B | ~-$15.3M | -Rp1.81B | Widened sharply |
| Total Cash (period-end) | Rp641.95B | ~$35.7M | Rp976.73B | -34.28% |
| EPS (basic, quarter) | ~Rp60 | ~$0.0033 | ~Rp59 | +1.30% |
Adjusted EBITDA grew 23.41% YoY, nearly three times operating income's 8.27% growth - the gap is almost entirely depreciation, not a swing in cash generation. Standalone depreciation rose to an implied Rp230.52 billion this quarter, from Rp168.45 billion a year ago (this filing's own "Total Depreciation Expense" note states Rp597.49 billion for the nine months, against the Rp366.97 billion already reported for H1 2026) - the fastest-growing depreciation quarter of the year, tracking the heavier capex described below. A reader who checks only Adjusted EBITDA this quarter would overstate how much the business's real operating profitability improved.
Free cash flow's shortfall widened sharply to -Rp276.14 billion from a near-breakeven -Rp1.81 billion a year ago, on the year's heaviest capex bill. Standalone operating cash flow fell to Rp391.96 billion from Rp583.59 billion a year ago, while capex rose to Rp668.10 billion from Q3 2025's Rp585.40 billion - both moving the wrong direction for free cash flow at once. Total cash fell both YoY (-34.28%) and sharply quarter-on-quarter from Q2 2026's Rp1,358.09 billion, as this quarter's heavy capex combined with net loan repayments (see Balance Sheet below) drew down the cash built up earlier in the year.
Balance Sheet
| Balance sheet metric | Sep 2026 (IDR) | Sep 2026 (USD) | Jun 2026 (IDR) | QoQ Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Assets | Rp9,664.33B | ~$537.0M | Rp10,085.67B | -4.18% |
| Total Liabilities | Rp3,284.90B | ~$182.5M | Rp3,856.42B | -14.82% |
| Total Equity | Rp6,379.43B | ~$354.5M | Rp6,229.25B | +2.41% |
| Debt-to-Equity Ratio» (as disclosed by the filing) | ~0.52x | - | ~0.62x | Fell back below the Q2 spike |
Debt-to-equity fell back from Q2 2026's dividend-driven spike to a record ~0.62x, down to the company's own disclosed ~0.52x, close to where it sat in Q1 2026 before the AGM dividend was paid. Total bank loans fell across all five lenders to Rp2,059.88 billion from Rp2,263.80 billion at FY2025-end (OCBC, HSBC, Permata and Maybank all declined; SMBC's balance fell by nearly half), even though this quarter also ran the year's heaviest capex bill (see Key Financial Metrics above). Total cash fell by more than half sequentially, from Rp1,358.09 billion to Rp641.95 billion, funding both the capex and the loan paydown at once - a much faster deleveraging than Q1 2026's modest 2.27% sequential decline. The filing's own capital-management note states the Group's debt-to-equity ratio as 0.52 at September 30, 2026 and 0.53 at December 31, 2025 - close to, though not identical to, this post's own total-liabilities-over-total-equity calculation (~0.51x and ~0.53x); the company's disclosed figure is used here as the headline number.
Where Q3 2026's Revenue Went
Net revenue, and how much of it was left as operating profit and net income, in one view. Figures are the same standalone-quarter figures as the metrics table.
Rp trillion, Q3 2026. Operating costs are net revenue less operating income; other items & tax are operating income less net income.
Segment Performance
Blue Bird still reports the same two operating segments - Taxi and Non-Taxi - unchanged since Q1 2016's two-segment collapse. This quarter's segment numbers are shown cumulative (nine months ended September 30, 2026 versus the same period in 2025), not as a standalone quarter, because Q2 2026's condensed interim filing omitted the segment note entirely, leaving no H1 2026 segment baseline to subtract from this filing's nine-month total.
Taxi
Taxi revenue rose 11.17% to Rp3,198.99 billion over the nine months from Rp2,877.44 billion, but operating margin compressed to 9.10% from 10.93% a year earlier - continuing the segment's margin slide seen in Q1 2026 alone.
Non-Taxi
Non-Taxi revenue rose 9.82% to Rp1,441.88 billion from Rp1,312.98 billion, with operating margin compressing to 12.71% from 13.93% - a smaller give-back in percentage-point terms than Taxi's, matching the pattern where both segments move the same direction together rather than offsetting each other.
Segment Comparison
| Segment | Revenue (9M 2026) | YoY Change | Operating Margin (9M 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taxi | Rp3,198.99B (68.93%) | +11.17% | 9.10% (9M 2026); 10.93% (9M 2025) |
| Non-Taxi | Rp1,441.88B (31.07%) | +9.82% | 12.71% (9M 2026); 13.93% (9M 2025) |
Both segments compressed operating margin YoY together over the nine months, continuing a pattern already visible in Q1 2026 alone. Taxi's share of combined segment revenue held essentially flat at 68.93%, close to where it's sat for several quarters, so this is a within-segment margin story, not a shift in the revenue mix. The segments reconcile closely to the group figure: Taxi and Non-Taxi's combined operating profit of Rp474.34 billion plus a Rp9.97 billion elimination equals the filing's own consolidated operating profit of Rp484.31 billion - a small, disclosed gap, not an unattributed-cost bridge worth a separate reconciliation table.
Key Operational Metrics
Arrow = the way the number moved against a year earlier. Grey = flat or not a clear good or bad.
- Weighted average shares outstanding: 2,502,100,000, unchanged since the IPO.
- Permanent headcount rose to 3,768 employees at September 30, 2026 (unaudited), up 11.55% YoY from September 2025's 3,378 and up 4.55% from Q1 2026's 3,604 (Q2 2026's condensed filing didn't disclose a headcount figure, so no direct sequential comparison is available) - continuing the steady YoY growth seen in both quarters reported so far this year.
- Board of Commissioners/Directors compensation still disclosed two different ways - see Beyond the Usual.
- Per-lender pledged-fleet unit counts, disclosed in Q1 2026's filing, are absent from this filing's collateral note again, continuing the gap already flagged when Q2 2026's condensed interim report also omitted it.
- Geographic revenue split (Jadetabek vs. outside Jadetabek) is still not disclosed, matching every prior filing.
- Still not available: any Gojek/GoPay integration volume or revenue metric, or a volume/revenue figure for the Grab Car Plus integration signed in October 2024 or the seven-year Transjakarta bus agreement - all still unquantified.
Stock Price
Blue Bird's stock closed Q3 2026 at Rp1,550 on September 30, 2026, up 4.38% from Q2 2026's Rp1,485 close - a quarter that rose through July and August before giving back some of the gain in September (Rp1,610 in July, Rp1,630 in August, Rp1,550 in September). Over the trailing two years the stock ranged from a low of Rp1,485 (June 2024, and again June 2026) to a high of Rp2,100 (October 2024), so this quarter's close sits only modestly above the low end of that range. No stock split falls within the two-year price window used here, so all prices in this post are on a nominal, non-adjusted basis.
Beyond the Usual
A two-year-old land-dispute lawsuit is now resolved in Blue Bird's favor
The Roma Purba land-dispute lawsuit first disclosed in the FY2025 filing - still unresolved as of Q1 2026 - reached a final outcome this quarter. On June 3, 2026, the Bale Bandung District Court ruled through an electronic hearing that the plaintiff's claim was inadmissible; no party filed an appeal within the statutory window, and on June 18, 2026 the court registrar issued a certificate confirming the ruling is now final and legally binding (inkracht van gewijsde). As of this filing's completion date, the legal proceedings are concluded.
The filing's two Board compensation notes still don't reconcile
This filing states Board compensation two different ways, continuing a gap into a fifth reporting period. The general corporate-information note (Note 1c) states compensation benefits paid to the Board of Commissioners as Rp5.175 billion and to the Board of Directors as Rp6.935 billion for the nine months ended September 30, 2026 (Rp4.880 billion and Rp6.461 billion a year ago) - a combined Rp12.110 billion. But the related-party transactions note (Note 24) discloses short-term compensation benefits of Rp8.006 billion (Commissioners) and Rp23.384 billion (Directors) for the same nine months (Rp7.183 billion and Rp24.532 billion a year ago) - a combined Rp31.390 billion, for what both notes describe as the same boards over the same period. This is the same unreconciled gap flagged in Q1 2025, FY2025, and Q1 2026; the filing still doesn't explain the difference.
Related-party rent fell as a share of total rental expense
Rent paid to related parties - companies under the same key management and shareholders, including PT Pusaka Citra Djokosoetono and PT Blue Bird Taxi - fell to Rp68.678 billion over the nine months from Rp91.497 billion a year ago, dropping to 48.73% of total rental expense from 58.85%. The filing doesn't explain the shift, but it's a real decline in both the absolute amount paid to related parties and their share of total rent.
OCBC's loan covenants cap leverage at 3.5 times EBITDA
The OCBC credit facilities covering most of the Group's borrowing (excluding three units: CAR, LPP and PMM) require Blue Bird to keep interest-bearing debt below 3.5 times EBITDA and a debt-service coverage ratio of at least 1.25 times; the filing states the Group was in compliance with both covenants as of September 30, 2026. It's the only externally-disclosed leverage ceiling in the filing - a useful anchor for how much this quarter's deleveraging (see Balance Sheet) actually mattered to a lender, beyond the AGM-dividend story alone.
Target Valuation Range
Enterprise value ~Rp6,521.20B (~$362.3M), implying ~6.50x annualized P/E and ~0.61x P/B - slightly pricier than Q2 2026 on both multiples, driven by the stock's 4.38% rise rather than by a change in the business.
Blue Bird's stock closed Q3 2026 at Rp1,550 (2,502,100,000 shares outstanding, unchanged). Annualizing this single quarter's net income by four (a rough sanity check, not a forecast, since Blue Bird's quarters aren't perfectly seasonal):
| Market cap → enterprise value | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|
| Share price (period-end) | Rp1,550 |
| Shares outstanding | 2,502,100,000 |
| Market capitalization | ~Rp3,878.26B (~$215.5M) |
| Total liabilities | ~Rp3,284.90B |
| Less: cash and equivalents | ~Rp641.95B |
| Enterprise value | ~Rp6,521.20B (~$362.3M) |
Market cap is up 4.38% from Q2 2026's ~Rp3,715.62B.
| Peer-multiple sanity check | Q2 2026 (quarter-annualized) | Q3 2026 (quarter-annualized) |
|---|---|---|
| P/E | ~5.63x | ~6.50x (Q3 2026 net income Rp149.07B × 4) |
| P/B | ~0.60x | ~0.61x (book value/share ~Rp2,549.63, total equity ÷ shares outstanding) |
| Annualized ROE | ~10.60% | ~9.35% |
| Annualized ROA | ~6.55% | ~6.17% |
Both multiples rose this quarter as the stock price climbed 4.38% quarter-on-quarter - P/E rose more than P/B because net income itself fell 9.69% quarter-on-quarter (even as it still grew 1.30% year-on-year) while book value kept growing on retained profit. That's a different combination from Q2 2026, when a falling stock price pushed both multiples down together as book value fell on the dividend payout. No directly comparable, asset-heavy owned-fleet taxi operator has a peer multiple to set against Blue Bird's here - Grab and GoTo run asset-light ride-hailing marketplaces with a fundamentally different cost structure - so this section compares Blue Bird only against its own trailing quarters rather than forcing a peer-multiple table that wouldn't say anything real.
PT Blue Bird Tbk's consolidated financial statements as at September 30, 2026 and for the nine-month period then ended, with comparative figures as at and for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2025, and (for balance sheet comparatives) as at December 31, 2025. Standalone Q3 2026 and Q3 2025 figures in this post are derived by subtracting each year's already-published six-month cumulative figures from this filing's own nine-month cumulative totals.